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Daniel Markey is adjunct senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where he specializes in security and governance issues in South Asia. He is the author of a book on the future of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, No Exit from Pakistan: America's Tortured Relationship with Islamabad (Cambridge University Press, October 2013). In 2015, Dr. Markey was appointed as Senior Research Professor in International Relations and Academic Director of the new Global Policy Master of Arts Program at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

From 2003 to 2007, Dr. Markey held the South Asia portfolio on the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State. Prior to government service, he taught in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, where he served as executive director of Princeton's Research Program in International Security. Earlier, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies.

Dr. Markey is the author of numerous publications, including the January 2014 CFR Special Report, Reorienting U.S. Pakistan Strategy: From Af-Pak to Asia;theFebruary 2013 CFR Policy Innovation Memorandum, Support Process Over Policy in Pakistan; the September 2011 CFR Asia Security Memorandum, Pakistan Contingencies; the May 2011 CFR Policy Innovation Memorandum, Next Steps for Pakistan Strategy; the January 2010 CFR Contingency Planning Memorandum, Terrorism and Indo-Pakistani Escalation; and a chapter of the Random House e-book, Beyond bin Laden: America and the Future of Terror. He served as project director of the CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force on U.S. strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Dr. Markey's commentary has been featured widely, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Christian Science Monitor. He has appeared on PBS, CNN, BBC, NPR, CBS, ABC, and C-SPAN.

Dr. Markey earned a bachelor's degree in international studies from The Johns Hopkins University and a doctorate in politics from Princeton University. He has been awarded grants from the Smith Richardson and MacArthur foundations to support his research.

The Future of U.S.-Pakistan Relations

Pakistan's internal troubles already threaten U.S. security and international peace, and Pakistan's rapidly growing population, nuclear arsenal, and relationships with China and India will continue to force it onto the United States' geostrategic map in new and important ways over the coming decades. Most immediately, the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan is drawing down and the nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan is likely to shift as a consequence. As I argued in my January 2014 Council Special Report, Reorienting U.S. Pakistan Strategy: From Af-Pak to Asia, any U.S. strategy for the rest of Asia that does not include Pakistan's role is incomplete, and a strategy for Pakistan that only considers its role in the context of Afghanistan is shortsighted. In articles, op-eds, and my recent book, No Exit from Pakistan: America's Tortured Relationship with Islamabad, I assess the U.S. relationship with Pakistan and recommend how Washington's policymakers should craft more effective policies for the future. I also convene a South Asia Roundtable Series to address similar topics with U.S. government officials, academics, and private sector analysts.

The New Geopolitics of China, India, and Pakistan

The emergence of China and more recently, India, has reshaped relations and produced a broader area of economic integration in Asia. Even in southern Asia, where the strategic triangle of China, India, and Pakistan has resulted in flashpoints and suspicions, both India and China have kept their sights on increasing trade and economic growth as a security imperative for the long term. However, southern Asia's security, political, and economic foundations face stresses that could profoundly alter its evolution, usher in the return of geopolitics, and reshape political and economic relations globally. This project will explore potential flashpoints and promising areas for cooperation among China, India, and Pakistan—and identify areas where the United States can help. Over the next two years, I will explore these issues with my colleagues Alyssa Ayres and Elizabeth Economy in a roundtable series and several publications. The project will culminate in a capstone symposium and a Council report in 2016.

This project is made possible through the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

China's "Go West" Strategy

In recent years, Beijing has signaled a new interest in the states of its western periphery by announcing plans for a "New Silk Road," "Maritime Silk Road," and a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, among other high profile initiatives. China's westward interests start with the vast energy resources of Central Asia and the Middle East, but other security and economic concerns are leading Beijing to focus greater attention westward, from Kazakhstan to Sri Lanka, Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. What are the likely consequences of China's expanded commercial, diplomatic, and strategic activity? Will China exacerbate or soothe tensions between India and Pakistan, or between Iran and Saudi Arabia? Will Afghanistan benefit from Chinese investment and enhanced diplomatic attention? Will Russia's influence in Central Asia be displaced by China's wealth and unquenchable thirst for energy? For the United States, the answers to these and other questions will determine whether China's westward march presents a geostrategic threat, a new opportunity for greater cooperation, or merely a distraction from other pressing global concerns. My research and travel will culminate with an assessment of the present state and future potential of China's "Go West" strategy and its consequences for the United States.

Daniel S. Markey examines Pakistan's complex role in U.S. foreign policy and advocates for a two-pronged approach that works to confront and quarantine immediate threats to regional security while simultaneously attempting to integrate Pakistan into the broader U.S. agenda in Asia.

Americans are increasingly frustrated with Pakistan's counterterrorism efforts, but the United States should resist the urge to threaten President Pervez Musharraf or demand a quick democratic transition. Getting Islamabad to play a more effective role in the war on terrorism will require that Washington strike a careful balance: pushing for political reform but without jeopardizing the military's core interests.

Votes are still being counted in Afghanistan's presidential election, but preliminary results suggest that no candidate won a majority. If these results hold up and no backroom deals are cooked up between Afghan politicians, a runoff poll will follow and the victor will not likely be declared until late summer. That timeline is making U.S. and NATO military planners very nervous.

While in Islamabad, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogue would be resumed in order to foster "deeper, broader and more comprehensive partnership." These fine words will need a lot of hard work to back them up. It would help if President Obama's administration also came to the table with a big new idea to re-energize its difficult relationship with Islamabad. An ambitious and forward-looking way to frame Washington's agenda with Islamabad would be to consider it within the context of Pakistan's role in the broader U.S. "rebalancing" to Asia.

The United States and Pakistan spent most of 2011 and at least half of 2012 lurching from crisis to crisis, their relationship teetering at the edge of an abyss. In recent months, however, moves by Islamabad have raised hopes in Washington that Pakistan might be navigating a "strategic shift" that would restart normal, workmanlike cooperation and, more important, would allow America to escape from its war in Afghanistan.

Daniel Markey examines the identity, interests, and popular standing of Pakistan's major leaders, particularly with respect to their willingness to cooperate or engage in partnerships with the United States.

Many Pakistanis are inclined to view 2014 as the beginning of a new U.S. abandonment of Pakistan. This perspective is inspired both by a long history of ups (1950s, 1980s, early 2000s) and downs (1960s, most of the 1970s, and 1990s) in the relationship between Washington and Islamabad, as well as by the coming military drawdown from Afghanistan.

Relations between China and Pakistan are indeed growing, but must be considered in a wider context to understand their potential implications for the United States and India.

Close Sino-Pakistani relations are nothing new. Especially with respect to military and nuclear ties, Beijing and Islamabad have have been friendly since the 1960s. In recent years, bilateral trade and investment have increased. Looking to the future, China's expanding influence in Central Asia and its interest in overland access to the Arabian Sea could motivate even stronger links with Pakistan.

The specific challenge in the post-2014 context, as NATO troops draw down from Afghanistan, is to avoid a situation in which violence and instability spike, leading U.S.-Pakistan relations to fray to the point of rupture.

The Afghan civil war of the 1990s was partly fueled by longstanding Indo-Pakistani rivalry, with different Afghan factions receiving support from different regional neighbors. The United States has a clear interest in avoiding a similar outcome as it disengages from the current war in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, promoting Indo-Pakistani dialogue on Afghanistan will not be easy.

Events

The South Asia Roundtable Series examines the major issues facing South Asia today. On Afghanistan, speakers and participants analyze stability, reconstruction, and counterinsurgency efforts. For sessions on Pakistan, they consider many aspects of the nature of the U.S.-Pakistan partnership, ranging from counterterrorism cooperation to issues of governance. Meetings on India look at the U.S.-India relationship and the tensions, limits, and opportunities that will define the American relationship with India moving forward. Other sessions may also examine timely issues that arise in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, or Nepal.

CFR Events

National Program Meeting ⁄ Chicago

Chicago Roundtable: The Road Ahead: U.S.-Pakistan Relations

Speaker:

Daniel S. Markey, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia, Council on Foreign Relations

Presider:

U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan: Report of a CFR-Sponsored Independent Task Force

Panelists:

James Dobbins, Director, International Security and Defense Policy Center, National Security Research Division, RAND Corporation; Member, Independent Task Force on U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Robert Grenier, Chairman, ERG Partners; Member, Independent Task Force on U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Daniel S. Markey, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia, Council on Foreign Relations; Director, Independent Task Force on U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan

Back in the summer of 2011, the editor of Foreign Affairs journal, Gideon Rose, suggested in the pages of The New York Times that the Obama administration draws lessons from the experience of the Vietnam War and implements a "Neo-Nixonian" strategy in Afghanistan.